Cruz a good fit with Orioles

AP Photo/Tony GutierrezOutfielder Nelson Cruz signed a 1-year, $8 million deal with the Baltimore Orioles.

Once the Orioles signed Ubaldo Jimenez -- forfeiting their first-round pick -- signing another free agent requiring compensation made a lot more sense, as the value of the next pick they'd have to give up is much lower. Nelson Cruz's one-year, $8 million deal reflects that cost but also the questions about his PED usage and his negative defensive value.

He's a solid fit for Baltimore, however, as the team had no real DH option on the roster, just several part-time players from whom they could have cobbled together a decent platoon. Cruz is better than any of those individual options, a destroyer of southpaws who hits right-handed pitching for enough power to keep him in the lineup every day, although spelling him against the best righties wouldn't be a bad strategy.

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Keith Law

Keith Law joined ESPN.com in June 2006 as the lead baseball analyst for Scouts Inc., covering the majors, minors and amateurs. He appears regularly across the ESPN family of networks, providing analysis on all baseball topics.

Before joining ESPN, Law spent 4½ years with the Toronto Blue Jays as a special assistant to the general manager, and was previously a writer for Baseball Prospectus. He graduated from Harvard College and holds an MBA from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon.

He also writes about food, literature, and other subjects on his personal site, The Dish. Check it out here.